Amazon Kindle Fire

Amazon has confirmed its initial line-up of Kindle Fire apps, ahead of the Android-based ereader/tablet's arrival next week. Among the promoted titles will be Facebook, Pandora, Netflix and Rhapsody, along with games such as Words With Friends and Plants vs. Zombies. Amazon is also pushing its 1-Click payment system for paid apps.

The next Kindle Fire ereader tablet in Amazon's line-up is likely to use an 8.9-inch touchscreen display rather than a 10.1-inch panel as originally expected, sources in the supply chain have revealed. While we've heard talk of a pair of tablets - one small, the 7-inch Kindle Fire shipping in little over a week's time, and one large, potentially arriving toward the end of the year - since the beginning of the Amazon rumors, DigiTimes's sources say the retailer has switched to a smaller screen and pushed a 10.1-inch version further back down the roadmap.

Apple execs reportedly have no fear of the Amazon Kindle Fire, according to analysts meeting with CEO Tim Cook and others at the firm, because the 7-inch slate will only highlight Android's growing fragmentation problem. Cook and Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer supposedly told Barclays analyst Ben Reizes that the stability of the iOS could prove to be the iPad's greatest allure, Business Insider reports, and that "the more fragmentation, the better."

Netflix and Amazon have each bolstered their streaming media catalogs, as the two rivals continue to spar over which has the fullest offering of TV shows and movies. Netflix announced an extension of its Disney-ABC deal that will see new and back-catalog titles including Alias and Switched At Birth added to the roster, while Amazon has revealed a Disney-ABC deal of its own that will see many of the same shows available to Amazon Prime customers and Kindle Fire users.

Get your documents all in order today on the Amazon Appstore with OfficeSuite Professional 5, an Office editing app that's normally $15, completely for free. As you may or may not know, the Amazon Appstore is a place where you can pick up apps on your Android device, this app store completely separate from the official Google version, that being called the Android Marketplace. If you'll take a look at your humble narrator's original Android Community 101: Amazon Appstore, it will all become abundantly clear. Today the Amazon Appstore is giving away no less than your one-stop shop for everything Office.

The team at Amazon.com have released information surrounding their third quarter sales as well as reporting to stock holders that their four new Kindle devices will blow away consumers for the holidays. Financial results for the third quarter ended in September 30, 2011 showed operating cash flow increasing by 19% to $3.11 billion for the 12 months trailing that date, while the 12 months in that timeframe ending at September 30 in 2010 ending up just below that number at $2.62 billion. Net sales had a similar jump at 44% to $10.88 billion in the third quarter while the same quarter last year yielded $7.56 billion.

Amazon's loss-leader strategy with the Kindle Fire ereader tablet, as well as a growing US sales tax bill, could lead to significantly reduced income this quarter analysts have predicted. The retailer is expected to announce earnings figures today, but already there are concerns that Amazon's net income may be just half of Q3 2010, according to an estimate average crunched by Businessweek. Part of the issue is the $199 Kindle Fire, hardware sales of which Amazon is believed to be taking a loss on, and instead relying on subsequent digital media sales to buoy profits.

Here we go, the furor over the iPhone 4S isn't yet done and already the next round of Apple rumors are floating by. The latest rumor isn't of the next iPhone, but of a future iPad that is supposedly coming to fight the Kindle Fire and its $199 price point. According to this rumor there is an iPad mini coming in 2012. The source is specific on the "mini" though.

According to some leaked sales data, the total number of Amazon Kindle Fire tablets sold since being launched 5 days ago is hovering just over 250,000 units. Sales may have slowed down a bit since it was last estimated to have reached almost 100,000 units on its very first day, but it's nonetheless impressive, considering how other tablet rivals have fared.

It is according to one digital marketing firm, eDataSource, sales of the cloud-based Amazon Kindle Fire Android-based tablet have reached 95,000 in its first day on the market - all of those sales being pre-orders. That's not quite one-third of the 300,000+ first-gen iPads sold on the first day back when it was released in April of 2010, but 100,000 is no number to scoff at. The Kindle Fire will officially be shipping on November 15th, just in time for you-know-what, and retailers are currently having heart attacks over its low price tag at $199 standard.